turned to look at their cellmates. 'They're certainly an odd-acting bunch.'
'It's all relative,' said Komeitk Lelianr. 'They undoubtedly think the same of us.'
Barch looked down at his shoes, at Komeitk Lelianr's sandals. 'Do you think we'll pass?'
'I couldn't say.'
The ship shivered; they heard deep clanking sounds, like an anchor-chain running down a hawse-pipe. 'What's that?'
'I don't know. Perhaps we have arrived.'
'If so, we didn't get changed any too soon.'
The ship jarred; the red glow in the wall pulsed bright and dim. A moment later the cell burst open. Gravity seized at the ten bodies-eight living, two dead. They slid down the cell wall, together with all the accumulated litter, trash and refuse, down to a smooth chute. Fresh air was cold on their faces; sound roared at their ears.
Barch's eyes smarted under the sudden light, his legs felt limp at the knees. 'Ellen!' he cried. 'Ellen, where are you?'
Blinking, he looked around him. They stood in a fenced enclosure, like a cattle pen. Komeitk Lelianr was a few feet distant, holding to her cap, which the original owner was attempting to reclaim. Barch staggered over, struck the man with his fist.
Something stung at his back, burning like fire; he turned, snarling. Above him, on a ramp, stood a tremendous man with blood-red skin. Black spikes of hair extended like quills on all sides of his head. He had eyes with red four-starred centers, like the Klau, and he carried a tube with a flickering serpent of light darting up, down, in, out.
He roared at Barch in a voice like a brass horn, flourished the flail. A disturbance in the adjoining pen attracted his attention. He pounded down the ramp. The flickering light-snake curled out. Barch heard a sharp cry.
He gained Komeitk Lelianr's side, dazed and angry, shook his head as if to clear it of confusion, glowered up at the trumpeting red whip-wielders.
Directly overhead a hatch opened; a stream of bodies plummeted at him. He jumped aside, pushed Komeitk Lelianr against the fence, away from the milling center of the pen, and here he caught his breath.
The ship continued to discharge. Men and women tumbled, slid, spewed from orifices under the ship, their fall broken by the bawling bodies below.
Past the great hulk, Barch glimpsed the shapes of the two other ships. Beyond rose the facade of a building a mile high, the roof-line blurred in fog. There was a steady roar in the air, like the sound of surf; a smell of mud, rust and ammonia hung across the pens.
Komeitk Lelianr said coolly in his ear, 'We're part of a not-too-valuable cargo. We'll be worked very hard; we'll die very quickly.'
He looked at her truculently. 'You sound as if you don't care.'
'I know what to expect. This is Magarak.'
Barch said, 'Personally, I'm scared stiff.'
She shrugged. 'Adjust yourself; your fear will pass.'
Barch glared. 'Adjust myself be damned! I'm almost afraid that I won't be able to make these devils regret the day they saw me!'
She glanced up to the top of the ramp. 'The Podruods will soon curse you of that.'
'They have eyes like the Klau.'
'They're a sub-species of Klau. There are Big Klau, Little Klau, Bornghaleze, Podruods-all Klau stock. The Podruods are the troops, the guards, the fighters.'
A metallic clatter rang out, accompanied by distant shouts. Barch, turning his head, saw a long feather-shaped boom vibrating back and forth across the sky. Overhead six white balls snapped past-one after the other, like rockets.
He said in Komeitk Lelianr's ears, 'This is bedlam.'
She nodded briefly. 'Compared to other parts of Magarak it's quiet.'
The Podruod voice rang out above like a clarion. 'Hey! Hey! Hey!' Directly behind them the fence opened. 'I guess we move,' muttered Barch.
A sudden rush of gray bodies with frightened white faces surged past. Knobby shoulders pummeled Barch. 'Ellen!' he cried. He looked all around desperately. 'Ellen! Where are you? Ellen!'
Arms thrust angrily at him, he was carried along the tide. 'Ellen!' He thought he heard his name; he stopped to listen. Nothing but the shuffle and thud of feet, ringing shouts of the great red Podruods.
A chute loomed ahead. Four abreast the Modoks scuttled up, jumped down into what appeared to be a long black barge. A Podruod with legs painted blue stood in the stern, his face working like rubber, yelling, crying.
Barch craned his neck, searching the sea of alien faces. Fifty feet ahead he saw Komeitk Lelianr. 'Ellen!' She turned her head. A great red hand obscured her face; she stumbled up the chute.
A second chute opened at Barch's right; the Podruods roared new directions.
Barch pushed forward, now shoving against the tide. He saw Komeitk Lelianr half-way up the chute. The Podruod roared, struck at him; the light-serpent snapped out.
Barch fell to his knees; feet pressed around him, stepping on his hands, his legs.
He crawled doggedly through, saw massive Podruod legs ahead. In sudden fury, he dove forward, tackled the legs. The great body toppled; the light-whip rolled in the dust. Barch snatched at it, missed. He rose to his feet, raced up the chute, pressed into the last of the group.
From behind came a hoarse yelling; Barch, glancing over his shoulder, saw a clot of Modoks kicking at the great spiked head, smiling, laughing.
Podruods came pounding along the ramp; light-snakes darted; the gray men dutifully marched into the chutes. The red man writhed, kicked on the ground like a beetle on its back.
Barch pushed ahead. 'Ellen!' He grasped her arm. 'I thought I had lost you.'
She took his hand, squeezed it tight. Barch's heart gave a sudden throb of joy. It was almost worth coming to Magarak.
A gate clanged behind them. The barge shuddered, rose into the air, slid clear of the slave yard.
Barch and Komeitk Lelianr, the last aboard, leaned against the rail. Komeitk Lelianr motioned toward the panorama. 'Now, look at Magarak…'
CHAPTER IV
The scene was too vast, too complex for mental grasp. Barch sensed flaring lights, gigantic objects in motion, monstrous shapes. Near at hand the lights were like openings into furnaces: yellow, orange, greenish-white, red; at the horizon they gleamed and flickered like stars.
Heavy sound came at a constant grumbling pitch, so far-reaching that it seemed an intrinsic property of the planet. Across the sky moved endless shapes-booms swinging in low circles, black objects like spiders darting along glistening tracks, barges floating at various levels, blast of dark vapor. Then underneath were the buildings: grayish-white, greenish-gray, black, orange, some faintly etched with window lines, others blank as new paper. Between were dark crevasses flickering with yellow or bluish glow far at the bottom.
Barch looked up into the sky, smoky, sooty, lumpy with low clouds. 'Is it day or night? It must be day.'
Komeitk Lelianr asked wryly, 'What do you think of Magarak?'
'I feel like an ant in a thrashing machine,' said Barch. He looked around the horizon. 'How far does the madhouse go on?'
'We must be on Kdoa,' she mused. 'A large continent- about five thousand of your miles wide.'
'Five thousand miles of this!'
She nodded. 'Underneath are the barracks, the commissaries, the nurseries.'
'Nurseries-for what?'
'Slave children. Slaves are encouraged to breed. The women become pregnant often to avoid heavy work. The children make the best slaves; they know no other kind of life.'
